And the candidates are correct. The voters don't know anything unless the
media tell them and the media isn't filled with people like David Sirota.
Miriam
More 2016 Candidates Embrace the Donald Trump Zeitgeist ... Including
Hillary Clinton
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/more_2016_candidates_embrace_the_donald_
trump_zeitgeistincluding_hillary/
Posted on Jul 24, 2015
By David Sirota
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump listens Thursday to a
question at the World Trade International Bridge in Laredo, Texas. (LM Otero
/ AP)
Since announcing his 2016 White House bid, Donald Trump has been the central
focus of the campaign-by one estimate, he has garnered almost 40 percent of
all election coverage on the network newscasts. Clearly, The Donald's
attempt to turn 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. into Trump White House has attracted
so much attention because the candidate is seen as a Bulworthesque carnival
barker who will say anything, no matter how hypocritical, factually
unsubstantiated or absurd.
Yet for all the hype he's generated, Trump is not the only presidential
hopeful willing to make utterly mind-boggling statements.
WATCH: VIDEO: Jon Stewart on Donald Trump: 'America's Id Is Running for
President!'
Take Hillary Clinton. Earlier this month, she said, "there can be no
justification or tolerance for this kind of criminal behavior" that has been
seen on Wall Street. She added that "while institutions have paid large
fines and in some cases admitted guilt, too often it has seemed that the
human beings responsible get off with limited consequences or none at all,
even when they have already pocketed the gains." Her campaign echoed the
message with an email to supporters lauding Clinton for saying that "when
Wall Street executives commit criminal wrongdoing, they deserve to face
criminal prosecution."
Clinton's outrage sounds convincing at first-but then, audacity-wise, it
starts to seem positively Trump-like when cross-referenced with campaign
finance reports, foundation donations and speaking fees.
According to an Associated Press analysis, Clinton has already raked in more
than $1.6 million worth of campaign contributions from donors in the same
financial sector she is slamming on the campaign trail. Additionally,
Clinton's foundation took $5 million worth of donations from at least nine
financial institutions that secured special deals to avoid prosecution-even
as they admitted wrongdoing. The Clintons also accepted nearly $4 million in
speaking fees from those firms since 2009.
Oh, and that anti-Wall Street email from Clinton's campaign? It was authored
by Clinton aide Gary Gensler, a onetime Goldman Sachs executive who later
became a government official.
Then there is Jeb Bush. He recently trekked back to Tallahassee to deliver a
speech portraying himself as a clean-government reformer. He asserted that
before he became Florida governor, "lobbyists and legislators grew a little
too comfortable in each other's company" but he also insisted that he
"refused to go along with that establishment" and "wasn't a member of the
club."
Again, it sounds vaguely convincing, until the facts make the chutzpah
involved seem positively Trump-ish.
A review of Bush's own gubernatorial emails shows that he was very much a
member of the club. He sought public policy counsel from lobbyists on
everything from government contracts to medical malpractice legislation to
state land purchases. Bush also approved a plan for corporate lobbyists to
help his administration pass a bill exempting the state's pension
investments from Florida's open records laws. And, of course, he is now
raising presidential campaign money from lobbyists.
Bush's speech, which bashed legislators who become lobbyists, was held at
Florida State University-a school whose president had previously become a
lobbyist after serving as Florida House speaker. If all that wasn't enough,
emails show Bush's event at FSU was arranged by the Florida Chamber of
Commerce-a corporate lobbying group that has funneled cash to a political
action committee backing Bush's presidential campaign.
In these and so many other spectacles, the candidates appear to be assuming
that voters will never know any context-they are assuming, in other words,
that voters are goldfish who will forget their entire world every 15 minutes
or so.
Trump may get all the attention for flamboyantly embodying such a cavalier
attitude. However, the cynical view of the electorate-and the attendant
say-absolutely-anything attitude-has now become the pervasive zeitgeist of
the entire 2016 campaign.
David Sirota is a senior writer at the International Business Times and the
best-selling author of the books "Hostile Takeover," "The Uprising" and
"Back to Our Future." Email him at ds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, follow him on Twitter
@davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.
C 2015 CREATORS.COM
http://www.truthdig.com/ http://www.truthdig.com/
More 2016 Candidates Embrace the Donald Trump Zeitgeist ... Including
Hillary Clinton
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/more_2016_candidates_embrace_the_donald_
trump_zeitgeistincluding_hillary/
Posted on Jul 24, 2015
By David Sirota
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump listens Thursday to a question
at the World Trade International Bridge in Laredo, Texas. (LM Otero / AP)
Since announcing his 2016 White House bid, Donald Trump has been the central
focus of the campaign-by one estimate, he has garnered almost 40 percent of
all election coverage on the network newscasts. Clearly, The Donald's
attempt to turn 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. into Trump White House has attracted
so much attention because the candidate is seen as a Bulworthesque carnival
barker who will say anything, no matter how hypocritical, factually
unsubstantiated or absurd.
Yet for all the hype he's generated, Trump is not the only presidential
hopeful willing to make utterly mind-boggling statements.
WATCH: VIDEO: Jon Stewart on Donald Trump: 'America's Id Is Running for
President!'
Take Hillary Clinton. Earlier this month, she said, "there can be no
justification or tolerance for this kind of criminal behavior" that has been
seen on Wall Street. She added that "while institutions have paid large
fines and in some cases admitted guilt, too often it has seemed that the
human beings responsible get off with limited consequences or none at all,
even when they have already pocketed the gains." Her campaign echoed the
message with an email to supporters lauding Clinton for saying that "when
Wall Street executives commit criminal wrongdoing, they deserve to face
criminal prosecution."
Clinton's outrage sounds convincing at first-but then, audacity-wise, it
starts to seem positively Trump-like when cross-referenced with campaign
finance reports, foundation donations and speaking fees.
According to an Associated Press analysis, Clinton has already raked in more
than $1.6 million worth of campaign contributions from donors in the same
financial sector she is slamming on the campaign trail. Additionally,
Clinton's foundation took $5 million worth of donations from at least nine
financial institutions that secured special deals to avoid prosecution-even
as they admitted wrongdoing. The Clintons also accepted nearly $4 million in
speaking fees from those firms since 2009.
Oh, and that anti-Wall Street email from Clinton's campaign? It was authored
by Clinton aide Gary Gensler, a onetime Goldman Sachs executive who later
became a government official.
Then there is Jeb Bush. He recently trekked back to Tallahassee to deliver a
speech portraying himself as a clean-government reformer. He asserted that
before he became Florida governor, "lobbyists and legislators grew a little
too comfortable in each other's company" but he also insisted that he
"refused to go along with that establishment" and "wasn't a member of the
club."
Again, it sounds vaguely convincing, until the facts make the chutzpah
involved seem positively Trump-ish.
A review of Bush's own gubernatorial emails shows that he was very much a
member of the club. He sought public policy counsel from lobbyists on
everything from government contracts to medical malpractice legislation to
state land purchases. Bush also approved a plan for corporate lobbyists to
help his administration pass a bill exempting the state's pension
investments from Florida's open records laws. And, of course, he is now
raising presidential campaign money from lobbyists.
Bush's speech, which bashed legislators who become lobbyists, was held at
Florida State University-a school whose president had previously become a
lobbyist after serving as Florida House speaker. If all that wasn't enough,
emails show Bush's event at FSU was arranged by the Florida Chamber of
Commerce-a corporate lobbying group that has funneled cash to a political
action committee backing Bush's presidential campaign.
In these and so many other spectacles, the candidates appear to be assuming
that voters will never know any context-they are assuming, in other words,
that voters are goldfish who will forget their entire world every 15 minutes
or so.
Trump may get all the attention for flamboyantly embodying such a cavalier
attitude. However, the cynical view of the electorate-and the attendant
say-absolutely-anything attitude-has now become the pervasive zeitgeist of
the entire 2016 campaign.
David Sirota is a senior writer at the International Business Times and the
best-selling author of the books "Hostile Takeover," "The Uprising" and
"Back to Our Future." Email him at ds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, follow him on Twitter
@davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.
C 2015 CREATORS.COM
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